Review for the leg:
Interesting racing task on the race, with time pressure as main difficulty.
The riddle task on the finale is always great as it gives teams an indirect location. Having 3 of [the teams bunched up] together is even better!
A final task that probably does not require so much memory, but it requires communication, which I think is the most essential thing this season.
tl;dr: Time Pressured ARI + Triple Riddle ARI + Communication Memory ARI = Great Finale
Tbh, I was disappointed with LoLo not being fast enough to catch up to the front of the pack. They probably took the subway since they weren't allowed to take a cab in the middle of the task. This could mean they were at the farthest end during the 2nd task, which pretty much ruined their chance to be racing at the front of the pack. I thought they would have a chance to dominate the final leg, but they're pretty much the team who might be stopped on their tracks if in an F4F. Still, making it far in this leg requires luck and effort, which they had all the way until the finish line.
Tara & Joey's mess-up was the riddle part. It's part of the task though, so they made a mistake on their own. At least it's not some cab taking them to the wrong place or getting U-turned. Those are examples of getting eliminated not by a team's own effort. They did well in the race overall, especially as the eldest racers of the season. Hopefully this encourages TAR to get more
older "more experienced" racers in the future!
Well, not just 46 and 38, but something older than those!
Brooke & Scott. Wow! They had such a race. Brooke may have had hard times calming down, but she gets through those eventually. She may have complained in so many tasks, but she gets them done. The ladle task may have been her lowest point, but S&S were really way behind that leg, so I still think they would survive that leg even if they didn't have other teams' helps.
This leg, she was trying to be calmer than she ever was in the entire race. There were times Scott pushed her from her limit, but she still tried to keep it together. Some tasks might have frustrated her slightly this leg, but she just vent out a bit and continued or tried again. What I really like about Brooke is that despite her complaining, she got things done in the end. I find her complaining selectively annoying and unnecessary sometimes, but she got tasks done, so that shouldn't be a big of a thing to let her team down. The worst case scenario would have been she complaining too much to the point that she gave up on a task and got her team eliminated because of it. Speaking of which, I don't remember her not finishing a task, as her team never took a penalty.
Scott on the other hand has a really nicely built story arc with his fear of heights. 3 of the 6 roadblocks he did were heights.
1 rappel down due to Brooke's injury, 1 climbing up due to something
, and 1 bungee jump which he hated the most.
It was enjoyable seeing him overcome those fears somehow. In the end, climbing the ladder to the memory tasks didn't even scare him (or was I just overlooking things?
). Anyway, aside from that, I really like his dynamic with Brooke. It taught him to be more patient, to be very patient.
Brooke would have had a different race timeline had Scott not chosen her. What I really like about Scott is his funny commentaries and reactions throughout the race. I think this peaked during the 6th leg, but for half of the race, there's something memorable and funny from him. I noticed that Scott was tense this leg, since it's the finale, thus there were times Brooke was questioning why Scott was yelling at her when in fact Scott was only talking too loud because of the pressure of the final leg.
Somehow, they did switch places this leg similarly to how they did back in the Nihn Bihn leg.
I really like their team dynamic and story arc all throughout the race, so this win was really well-deserved, from strategy all the way to effort.
Overall, this is one amazing season! The cast delivered, the twist worked out very well, the locations were wonderful despite not having a new country, and most leg designs were great, which made most episodes turn out well as a result. The editing improved this season! I'm not sure if it's just me, but in (almost?) every episode, each team was given enough screentime for character development. Hope this season makes future seasons amazing-er than the amazing-est!
Note: Too lazy to edit; Pardon any grammatical errors.